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Art is all around
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When I visited Ireland for the first time,
I was on the trip through the whole of Europe. I took
a night train from Maribor to Ljubljana and an hour later
I was on the Austrian border showing my passport. It was
late April 2004 and Slovenia was not a member of the European
Union yet. I underwent the same procedure on the German
border, |
when also a control by criminal police happened, but everything
was fine; only my sleep was distracted. I must admit it was
a very busy night. The song Trans Europe Express by
Kraftwerk was echoing restlessly in my head.
In the early morning I had an hour’s layover in Munich, where
I had breakfast and bought a ticket to my final destination.
It was Osnabrueck as I was invited to the European Media
Art Festival (EMAF) to give a lecture Culture and
New Media in Slovenia as a part of the programme Willkommen
im Klub, on 24th of April, which was about EU accession
countries.
Lars von Trier’s Europa Europa movie was rolling in my
sight.
The next day I was on the airport Duesseldorf-Weeze (Nieder-Rhein)
taking a plane to London and immediately after landing I was
on the train from London Euston to Liverpool, where I had a
meeting concerning Virtual Centre Media Net, one of
our Culture 2000 funded projects. With other co-producers
and partners we met at the FACT – Foundation for Art and
Creative Technology, where we were also a part of the Situationist
Sim City event.
From John Lennon Airport, which has a verse "above
us only sky" as a motto and where I saw mother appeasing
her rompish children, "calm down, you know airports
are for waiting," I took a plane to Dublin, where
I visited Slovene ambassador Mrs. Helena Drnovšek Zorko,
her daughter Špela and son Filip, and some friends. We expectedly
waited for the solemn moment of the European enlargement, which
was about for ceremony on the 1st of May. It was a hot and completely
clear sunny day.
It started with a discussion and then proceeded with emailing
and phoning with Mr. John X. Miller, director
of Cork Vision Centre, which is based St. Peter's
in Cork. I hadn't a clue into what we are immersing ourselves,
when I was in Ireland again visiting Cork to see the space for
the Enlargement programme of the Cork 2005 – European
Capital of Culture. We proposed our part in October
2003 and it was the kind of a situation in which you don’t know
exactly what is going on with taking the past into the future.
Only a couple of weeks ago I became truly aware of the responsibility
we have. For the first time in history Slovenia got the invitation
to participate in this programme as a member state. The European
City of Culture project was launched, at the initiative
of Melina Mercouri, by the Council of Ministers
on 13th of June 1985, designed to "contribute to bringing
the peoples of Europe together". It is one of the oldest
programs and has become ever more popular with the citizens
of Europe and has seen its cultural and socio-economic influence
grow through the many visitors it has attracted. This year is
the 20th anniversary of the launch, for the first
time it was in Athens. Who then cares after all, that Cork is
among smallest European Capitals of Culture and is
the same size as Maribor, when art is all around...
Peter Tomaž Dobrila
Programme Coordinator
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